Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As i can only answer personally the reasons are many. Coming from a low-country town in Carolina, I can still very well remember the sweet and pungent aromas of the tobacco auction season and the myriad sights and sounds that accompanied the auctioneer and buyers as they walked among the beautiful rows of golden leaves.
Due to my age, I can also recall sitting in the company of many others once they instructed me in precisely how to choose many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another around the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate The big where propane was employed by many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very soon afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle of the auction season still lingers with me as I think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out on the curing barns.
Maybe from that direct exposure I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I became given a lecture inside the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the fields. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked within a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then made into a twist for drying out. Back then chewing tobacco was regardless of whether similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Irealised i was grown, I was confronted with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some others. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and decrease of intense toasted flavors and Turkish blends. However, as cigarette tobaccos were more and more enhanced with additives better transportation and communications led to your growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a range of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many with the older ways seem better, but it seems that in now having so many options among cigarettes today, much of the flavor and aroma has died. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad coloring?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were on the old men I comfortable see who fascinated me with their dexterity though they hand rolled a smoke from one of the many over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that inevitably leave you using a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule start.
However, after a moment of exploration on the online world I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. After reading in RYO Magazine in addition a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment a good injector, some filter tubes and a wide selection of blends. Upon their arrival, my wife and I spent a few days sampling and experimenting.
I am now glad to say that we both thrilled with our purchases and what has got since experienced. Now, home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, brand new blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, currently has both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that supermarket smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is a lot more that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, once we now experiment with all of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a light blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of the best Turkish blend or a good dessert blend with a bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for other times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have the ability to enjoy the top quality in an incredible array of styles. Sometimes a thin, rolled smoke, other times a thicker injected smoke, with NO additives.
When we once tried the premium brand of pre-made commercial cigarettes, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a horrible bitter residual, and that all too familiar stench over the cargo box. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so much more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170
https://goo.gl/maps/sqMd1YLqExwwJctn9
Posted on:
July 11, 2019